To the Losers the Spoils
by Healer Pomfrey
Summary: Snape thought, 'Even if Minerva is not able to look through concealment charms, she should have noticed that something was off when the Gryffindor Quidditch team offered butterbeer to the Slytherins.' Completely AU, sick!Quidditchteam


**To the Losers the Spoils**

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_I'm not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes or help me to correct them._

_All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story._

_Just a plotless drabble my muse decided to write - nevertheless... Enjoy!  
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After his last Friday afternoon class, Harry dragged himself back to the Gryffindor common room, collapsing on the sofa in front of the fireplace. Ever since he had woken up in the morning, he had felt miserable. His head was throbbing, his throat was sore, and he felt dizzy and hot and cold at the same time.

"Harry, are you all right?" Ron queried in concern, observing that his friend's face was extremely pale, apart from his cheeks that were deeply flushed.

"He is not all right," Hermione replied firmly, quickly pulling her hand back from Harry's burning forehead. "Harry is ill."

"I'm fine; it's just a slight cold," Harry objected, sighing in relief as his head came to lie down on the sofa.

"Well, that's no wonder after practising Quidditch in the rain every evening," Hermione said, sighing. "Do you feel well enough to walk to the hospital wing, or shall I call Madam Pomfrey here?"

"Don't you dare," Harry spoke up, trying to sit up. "I can't tell her; otherwise, I won't be allowed to play in the match on Sunday."

"But if you're ill, you won't be able to play either," Hermione replied reasonably.

"Then you'll just have to nurse us back to health," Fred and George said hoarsely as they entered the common room and let themselves sink onto the two remaining sofas.

Before Hermione could reply, Katie, Alicia and Angelina entered the room, steadying each other. Hermione quickly transfigured three chairs into sofas and helped the three girls to lie down. "Is the whole Quidditch team sick?" she asked in disbelief.

"Probably yes," Katie replied, shivering violently. "We met Oliver, and he looked very flushed too. He should be here soon."

Hermione transfigured one more sofa, while Ron moved all the sofas to one side of the common room. "All right, so we'll try to nurse you back to health." He hurried into the bathroom and came back with seven wet towels and two digital thermometers, just as his sister entered the common room.

"Oh Ginny, what a good timing," Hermione said, sighing in relief. "Can you fetch a few more thermometers and help us look after these seven? The whole Quidditch team is sick."

Ginny's eyes widened. "And on Sunday is the most important match of the season," she breathed, terrified. "We're so near to winning the Cup this year."

While the girl hurried to the girl's bathroom to fetch some more supplies, Hermione coaxed the thermometers under Katie's and Alicia's tongues, before she and Ron went from one to the next, gently bathing their housemates' flushed faces with the wet towels. Ginny returned with some more thermometers and proceeded to take her brothers' and Harry's temperature, noticing from the corner of her eyes that Oliver dragged himself into the room and lay down on the sofa next to Fred's.

"Fred's and George's temperatures are a bit lower, and Harry's and Oliver's are higher than that of the girls, but everyone is running a fever between thirty-eight and thirty-nine degrees," Hermione announced after taking all the thermometers back. "What are we going to do?"

"We nicked a Pepper-up potion from the hospital wing, but it didn't help much," George admitted, while his brother let out a few harsh coughs.

"Hmmm. Harry, let me take a look at you," Hermione said firmly, coaxing the boy to open his mouth once more, before she lit the tip of her wand and examined her friend's throat and ears. "Probably it's not a cold but a respiratory infection," she stated, proceeding to check on Alicia, before she turned to Ron. "They need a fever reducing potion and if possible something for their infection. Can you take Harry's invisibility cloak and try to fetch something from the hospital wing?"

"I'll come with you and help," Lee Jordan offered, and the two boys hurried away.

In the meantime, Hermione, Ginny and a few other Gryffindor girls fetched more towels, which they spelled to stay ice cold, before they arranged them around their sick housemates' necks, under their armpits and around their calves. Others fetched warm blankets from a cupboard and gently tucked the sick students in.

A short time later, Ron and Lee returned with several phials of fever reducer, causing Hermione to sigh in relief. "Very well then; we have to take their temperature and give them a spoonful of the fever reducer every four hours. I don't know if that'll be enough, but we can only try. However, if someone's fever spikes and exceeds forty degrees, we'll call Madam Pomfrey."

The Gryffindors agreed and decided that everyone from third year upwards should take turns looking after the sick students during the night. '_Thank God Professor McGonagall normally doesn't come into the common room_,' Hermione mused as she took the first night shift together with Percy Weasley.

"We should make parchments for everyone to register their temperature and possible problems, so that the next shift will know about it," Percy suggested as he busied himself keeping a thermometer in place under George's armpit without waking the boy.

"If the teachers find out what we're doing here, we'll be in so much trouble," Hermione replied, carefully trying to pull Harry's pyjama top down over his shoulder without making the boy flinch back at her cold touch. "Harry and Oliver are much worse than the others," she stated as she took the thermometer back. "They have really high fevers."

"They probably spent more time out in the rain training," Ginny threw in, yawning, as she descended the stairs to the common room.

"All right, now let me try to spell a spoonful of the fever reducer into each of them," Percy said thoughtfully, concentrating on the phial in front of him and Alicia. Two minutes later, he sighed in relief. "Thank God it worked. That was fairly easy," he said as he quickly conjured parchments, on which Hermione noted the temperatures they had just taken.

"That's good, Percy. Can you please teach me the spell, so I can do it the next time?" Hermione queried.

"No, you're going to bed," Ginny said firmly, just when Lavender and Lee came down the stairs. "We're going to take over now."

HP HEALER POMFREY HP

On Saturday, a dozen Gryffindor students took turns looking after their seven sick housemates, while the others spent the day in Hogsmeade, so it wouldn't be evident to the teachers that something was wrong in Gryffindor.

"Thank God the Quidditch match is tomorrow because of the Hogsmeade day today," Harry groaned as Hermione woke him up to check on him.

"Aren't you feeling any better, Harry?" she asked worriedly, noticing that he looked worse for the wear.

"It's not so bad, but I hope it'll be better tomorrow," Harry croaked.

"It is fairly bad," Hermione replied, shutting him off by sticking the thermometer under his tongue.

Katie, who was feeling much better than the others, sat up and said thoughtfully, "Hermione, can you please ask the others if anyone is capable of casting concealment charms? If we appear on the Quidditch pitch tomorrow looking like Harry or Oliver look today, they won't let us play but send us to the hospital wing straight away."

"As soon as Ginny comes to replace me, I'll go to the library and do some research," Hermione replied firmly, throwing Parvati a questioning look. "Would you mind helping me look for a spell or charm?"

"Of course, let's go," Parvati agreed, seeing that Ginny just returned and immediately tended to Harry, whose thermometer just beeped.

"Harry, you're running a high fever. Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital wing?" Ginny asked in concern, coaxing the glassy thing under Oliver's tongue.

"We gog do kay ig..." Oliver mumbled, but quietened at Ginny's menacing glare.

"It's all right; we're going to play in any case. We only have to fool everyone until I catch the Snitch," Harry said weakly, throwing Ginny a grateful look when she gently supported his back to help him up into a slightly upright position, so he could take his potion.

"Try to sleep for a while," she ordered him gently, placing ice cold towels around his neck, arms and legs.

HP HEALER POMFREY HP

During the night, Oliver and Harry kept everyone awake with their fever induced nightmares about fouls by the Slytherins and losing the match against them, and in spite of their housemates' efforts to cool them down and make them feel better, the seven members of the Quidditch team remained feverish and unwell.

In the morning, the others checked on them and gave them two spoonfuls, Harry and Oliver even four spoonfuls, of the remaining potion, before Percy, Lee and Hermione cast concealment charms on the seven friends.

"Feel free to cough as much as you like, no one will see or hear any of it," Percy told them, smirking, causing his brothers to whisper excitedly about how they had never thought Percy would help the Quidditch team in such a way.

The members of the Quidditch team dragged themselves to the Great Hall for breakfast in order not to make their Head of House suspicious. They only took a few bites each, before they headed out to the Quidditch pitch, sighing in relief as they mounted their brooms.

"Flying is much better than standing, isn't it?" Alicia whispered to the twins, who readily agreed.

"Let's just hope that Harry manages to catch the Snitch as fast as possible," Oliver threw in, throwing the youngest team member a concerned look.

"I'll do my best," Harry promised and flew higher as the match was about to begin.

Dark clouds were covering the sky, and it wasn't easy to see the Snitch against the clouds, especially for Harry, who felt extremely dizzy and had to concentrate hard to keep himself on his broom. Completely ignoring his teammates' play, he feverishly searched for the Snitch. Once, he thought he had spotted it, but then it was gone again. However, finally, he saw something golden. The only problem was that there seemed to be two Snitches. '_Well, that must be because of the fever; I hope at least one of them is the real thing_,' he mused as he raced over the pitch, not daring to go into his usual dive because of the dizziness that was threatening to overwhelm him.

Fortunately, he managed to catch the Snitch forty-eight minutes into the game, causing the other members of his team to thank him in relief. Madam Hooch announced Gryffindor's victory, and the Headmaster called the team together with his eyes twinkling madly.

"Congratulation, Gryffindor, for winning the Quidditch Cup," he said, handing the trophy to Oliver, who gave it to McGonagall straight away under huge applause of the whole school except for the Slytherins that had achieved the second place. "This is not common, but this time, I also have a crate of butterbeer for your party."

Oliver glanced at his team members, before he replied, "Thank you very much, Professor, but we're so happy with the Quidditch cup that we'd like the Slytherin team to have the butterbeer."

Under applause of the Slytherin team, Oliver shook Marcus Flint's hand, before they were dismissed, and the players quickly headed back to their Houses to take a shower and change.

HP HEALER POMFREY HP

A few hours later, McGonagall took her seat at the Head table for dinner, seeing that only the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables were occupied. "They still seem to have a party, even if they didn't want butterbeer," she said thoughtfully, more to herself than to her colleagues, causing Snape to smirk.

"If I were you, Minerva, I'd have already checked on them yesterday, when none of the Gryffindor Quidditch team members attended any meal." '_Even if you're not able to look through concealment Charms, you should have noticed that something was off when they offered the butterbeer to their opponents_,' he added to himself.

"Didn't they?" McGonagall asked in surprise. "I wasn't aware of that due to all the excitement because of the Hogsmeade day. Oh well, I'll go and have a look into the common room."

When the Gryffindor Head stepped through the portrait hole, half of the students were quietly eating dinner that the house-elves had provided for them in the common room. The other half was observing in concern as Hermione and Ginny walked to each of the seven Quidditch team members that were spread out on sofas, plucking thermometers from their lips, before Ron noted the results on small parchments, Lavender and Percy gently helped them into a slightly sitting position to make them take a spoonful of potion, and Lee and Parvati carefully wiped their flushed faces with small towels.

"We have to call Madam Pomfrey," Hermione finally spoke up. "Harry's and Oliver's fever is exceeding forty degrees."

"Why didn't you call her earlier?" McGonagall queried, causing everyone to gasp at her sudden appearance. Without waiting for an answer, she headed to the fireplace and called the Mediwitch, before she turned back to her students. "Even if you should have called Madam Pomfrey immediately, I'm pleased to see how well you're taking care of your House mates. One hundred points to Gryffindor."

**The End**


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